Severe Rains Continue To Flood Africa

Flash floods have led the UN to issue a warning over the weekend as the heaviest rains in recent history affect over 1 million people in Sub-Sahara Africa, and counting.

By submerging the region's most productive farmland under water, the recent flooding provides no relief for what is already one of the world's poorest regions. According to Saturday's BBC News, the United Nations reports an urgent need for food, shelter and medicine, and warns of outbreaks of water-born diseases, such as of cholera and dysentery, as well as locust infestations that could affect the residents of 12 countries if flooding continues.

Uganda has been hit the hardest, with up to 400,000 people affected in the country's heaviest rains in 35 years. Nine people are reported to have died and food security if one of the countries biggest concerns. Deaths have also been reported in Ethiopia , Rwanda, Ghana and Sudan, and have led to a barrage of emergency disaster relief programs aimed at providing shelter and food to those displaced by this crisis.

Please do what you can to help by donating to your favorite charity or disaster relief program, or support artisans in the affected regions by shopping at Economic Development Imports, our partner company and a fair trade distributor of East and West African products.

Map courtesy of BBC News.